The pumps are under the carpenter's charge. He knows not only how to fit their boxes and renew the packing—many sailors have that knowledge—but he can invent in time of need substitutes for leather, and by all sorts of devices make it possible to keep the hold clear of water. Also he is responsible for the due working and up-keep of the iron-work aloft. The great trusses and goose-necks upon which the massive yards are balanced, so that they swing from one side to the other, are his care; he visits them at regular weekly intervals with oil feeder and scraper, and with minute scrutiny assures himself that there are no flaws in them which may in a moment of stress extend into breaks, and let half the ship's company go howling to leeward, and be swallowed up in the hissing vortex of white foam that surges hungrily upward. He attends to the due working of iron block and sheaves, and examines with a critical eye both masts and yards for flaws. To do this, it is necessary that he be able to climb in any weather, since the gear is permanently fixed aloft, and thither he must go to examine it. But it is seldom that he is called upon to work aloft unless he be an ardent seaman as well as a carpenter. Some members of the honoured family of "Chips" I have known who scorned to be left on deck when a rising gale demanded the services of all hands to shorten sail. They were as keen and eager to wrestle with the mighty wings thundering at their confining gear as any purely seafaring man that ever hung on to a jackstay by his eyebrows, or scorned to secure himself on a yard by thrusting his arm through a becket. There was never any need to call them specially when it was all hands; they were always on deck with a leap, as if they had been waiting ready rigged for the word, although had one gone into their berths for anything an instant before the cry was given he would have found them sleeping with the care-free soundness of the sailor.
The bo'sun, carpenter, sailmaker, and cook generally live together in a compartment of the forward house on deck. Formerly their berth was known as the "half-deck," a survival of ancient days, when they were really berthed in a horrible dungeon that rightfully bore the name. But now the title is often carried by the berth set apart for the apprentices, and the petty officers' quarters are as often divided in two, one for the bo'sun and carpenter, and the other for the sailmaker and cook. They are attended in simplest fashion by a boy, not at all as a servant, but just to carry in their simple fare, wash their mess-traps, and scrub out the berth. They may feed a little better than the men, but not much, and the manner of their table is practically the same, the "table," indeed, being often non-existent, as they eat their meals in the good (?) old way, that is, with their plates upon their knees or on a chest at their sides. But the carpenter has, in addition to this home, which he shares with one or two others, a place of retreat, sacred to him alone, wherein no man has any right to enter, save the master and mate, and I am doubtful about the mate. It is his "shop." Here is his bench; here he does such small work as comes under the head of carpentering proper, or, on a long passage, makes cabinets, writing-desks, or bookshelves for the skipper. It is a temple of peace, fragrant with the scent of new wood, with a sub-tone of pungent tobacco smoke, for here the presiding genius may, and does, smoke, with no one to say him nay.
Unlike any other officer in the ship below the rank of mate, Chips finds his own work; unless, indeed, the master may have some special piece of work that he wishes done. And even then it would probably not be undertaken if Chips did not think it was feasible. Under ordinary circumstances the carpenter goes on his own even way, no man interfering with him, and few knowing what he is employed upon. Once, when on the homeward-bound passage of a long voyage, I asked our carpenter whether he was not sometimes puzzled to know what to find to do. It was a piece of daring on my part, for he was a dour Aberdonian of middle age, so taciturn that his voice was seldom heard, and with a grim expression on his face that discouraged familiarity. But he had thawed out a bit on this occasion, and told me several yarns, so I ventured to put the question, which had often occurred to me. "Mahn," he growled, with lowering brow, "Ah cud fin' wurrk fur seven year, 'f we wur oot sae lang. Fat du Ah fine tae dae? ye say. Did ye ever see ma idle in wurrkin' oors?" I shook my head vigorously, feeling that I was on exceedingly delicate ground. "Nah," he muttered, "there's nae lack o' wurrk, but ther's plenty wantin' wull tae dae it. But Ah niver hahd ta worry aboot siccan a thing in a' ma life." And I said no more, being no wiser than I was before, but feeling that what he said was true.
On the other hand, it may very well be that a ship's-carpenter sometimes comes in for an overwhelming pressure of work which taxes all his energies to cope with. On one occasion, in my own experience, the skipper of a big ship, as we then considered her, bound from Liverpool to Bombay brought with him to sea a number of huge rough spars, bought cheaply, I suppose. These he purposed to replace the yards that were already doing duty aloft, and as soon as opportunity offered the work was begun. It was a tremendous task for one man to undertake; but our Chips, although it was only his second voyage to sea, was fully equal to the demand made upon his skill and strength. More than that, he was able to train sundry members of the crew in the handling of broad axe and rip-saw, so that they could take off him the most laborious part of the work. During a calm that persisted for eight weeks, we practically shifted every yard in the ship, working all day long, and—shall I say it?—sleeping all night. I will not go so far as to say that the man at the wheel went to sleep, but I dare not say that he did not, for no demand was made upon his steering skill by the ship—she lay as nearly motionless as a ship can lie upon the ocean. It was then that I learned how wonderful a tool in the hand of an expert is the adze. Our Chips seemed to prefer it to all his other tools, and the way he made it serve him was marvellous. I heard him tell a story of how some braggart was boasting in the yard of his skill with the adze, when an old carpenter challenged him to take off a shaving under his foot, staking his week's wages that he, the challenger, would take off the thinnest. The boaster tried, and succeeded in slitting the sole of his new boot, at which there was much laughter. Then the veteran, taking off his shoe and stocking, placed his naked foot upon the plank, and swinging his adze over his head, brought it down with a whir. On removing his foot, a shaving no thicker than note-paper lay upon the broad blade of the adze. And the old man slyly said, "Ah dinna keer fur reskin' a guid peyr o' butes in a ploy laik this yin. But it'll mebbe teach ye no' to give way tae ungodly boastin' agin." I have no difficulty in believing the story, having seen the truly marvellous way in which this awkward-looking (to a novice) but ancient tool is handled by an expert shipwright.
That same carpenter mended the skipper's wife's sewing-machine, "sorrted," as he would say, the same lady's bracelet. In fact, he was always being called upon to do some job as far removed from carpenters' work as one could well imagine, and always-succeeded.
Carpenters in American ships are, of course, super-excellent, but they are not so good at iron-work as a Scotchman. For a Scotch carpenter seems equally at home in handling wood or iron, as a result, I suppose, of the thorough training he receives while an apprentice. But in woodwork, in extensive repairs to a ship, the Yankee cannot be beaten. Indeed, he must needs be good, for otherwise he "would almost certainly find some of the officers who "would offer to teach him his trade. And in British North American ships a carpenter is not often carried, since nearly every Blue-nose sailor is a born worker in wood, and would consider the carrying of a carpenter a superfluous expense, quite unwarranted by any ship needs whatever.
Although not strictly within the purview of the present work, I may be pardoned for paying a belated tribute to the excellence of the American carpenters carried in the whaleships. Their strong point was in boat-building; and to see what they could and did do with a batch of broken boats, some of them indeed with hardly any vestige of a boat remaining! Without any help, without rest for a couple of days and nights, except for necessary food, they would toil until they had again made it possible for the pursuit of the whale to be undertaken; and they had to work in such cramped quarters, not free from the all-pervading greasiness of trying out, that how they managed to do anything at all in workmanlike fashion was a mystery. One of them that I knew was also an artist in ivory and bone. He had a lathe of his own construction, and by its aid he turned out such exquisite pieces of ornamental work that they would not have been put to shame in any exhibition in the world.
These ships also carried another artisan—the cooper—whose province it was to make casks, barrels, tubs, buckets, piggins; anything that could be made with hoops and staves. Consequently utensils that in other ships would have been of iron were in the whalers of wood, and I once heard our old cooper declare that he'd undertake to make a lady a pair of stays if he was favoured with the order. And I have no doubt that he would have done so, a pair that would have lasted a lifetime. No one on board would have had the slightest difficulty in believing that, given a sufficient number of trees and a little iron, these two worthies would have speedily constructed a ship, in case of our vessel's loss, in which we might have sailed round the world.
One more old carpenter I must mention who, with a broken leg and covered from head to foot with suppurating mosquito bites, crawled from his bunk when our vessel was found to be on shore in the middle of the night. In this pitiable condition of body he immediately began to caulk the only serviceable boat we had, which, lying bottom upward upon the skids, had got so impoverished by the sun that her seams were gaping wide, rendering her absolutely useless. And from thenceforward, without one word of complaint, for over twenty hours that heroic man laboured on until all that he could do was done. He did not seem to think that his doing so was in any way extraordinary.